Japan Documentaries 2018 Episode 9/15: Lost in Tokyo Station – News

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Crowdfunding for the 2022 Japan documentary is in full swing. To mark the occasion, we are making the 15 episodes of the Japan documentaries 2018 freely available in 1080p. Episode 9 shows the full extent of Tokyo Station.

Since 2018, the Japan documentaries 2018 were only available to crowdfunders and buyers. We are now releasing the 1080p versions free for everyone (however, the making of is subject to a fee). If you like them, join the crowdfunding for the Japan documentary 2022 – and get all 2022 episodes for the special price of €10 (only until the start of travel!).

If you want, you can also Buy 2018 documentaries in 4K, including numerous extras. The extra-long Making Of (Episode 16) and a number of extras are then also included.

fun fact: I knew Tokyo Station from before and got lost in it before. But the first time I stayed nearby was in 2013, in the Metropolitan Marunouchi Hotel, which is directly connected to the Yaesu North entrance of Tokyo Station or even has direct access to the Nihonbashi exit. Only: It was surprisingly difficult to find there. Because until 2013, Lufthansa was still flying to Narita, 60km east of Tokyo, and the Narita Express, in turn, stopped somewhere in the bowels of the basement. Well, it certainly still stops there today, but I haven’t used it since 2014 because Lufthansa and Airline Partner then moved to Haneda, the city airport.

Anyway, I arrived with my much too large family suitcase (which I’ve only recently reactivated in the course of increasingly extensive souvenir packages) and somehow had to find the northern Nihonbashi exit. Everywhere people, many people, some of them grimly looking at my only moderately roadworthy traffic obstacle. Me: jet-lagged, stressed, annoyed. The directions from the hotel website didn’t really make sense, somehow it didn’t go out there! I must have wandered around the endless corridors for at least 20 minutes, but I couldn’t find the stupid Nihonbashi exit. Eventually I decided to go upstairs and ten minutes later I found my hotel.

So far, so understandable (I think). But when I took the subway to Tokyo Station to shoot this video (and also the Shinkansen video) at the end of March 2018 – about half of the footage in this documentary episode is from there, the rest from September – I found the travel agency I was looking for to exchange my Shinkansen coupon. Do the Japanese always have to rebuild everything if you don’t pay attention for half a year! In fact, Tokyo Station has been renovated for many years, but the construction workers couldn’t do anything about my problem: I once again strayed around on the 1st basement (because I arrived on a metro train instead of a JR train), and would only have one flight of stairs to go up have to take. Which I did after a few, hüstel, not a word is missing here.